Coming at you from the Memorial Auditorium in Greenville, South Carolina, it’s the February 1st edition of Smoky Mountain Wrestling!
Bob Caudle and Dirty Dutch Mantel(Zeb Colter) welcome us to the show as they call the action.
Bobby Fulton and Ivan Koloff will lock horns in the main event tonight, and Prime Time Brian Lee(Fake Undertaker, Chainz of the DOA) will be making his Smoky Mountain debut!
The first match is scheduled for one fall with a twenty minute time limit. The guy comes to the ring in a suit to some old school movie/tv show style music, and he’s carrying what appears to be a mobster/musician’s case with the implication that there is a weapon inside. From Hell’s Kitchen, New York, this is Killer Kyle! His opponent is one half of the Rock N’ Roll Express, Robert Gibson. Should be a solid opener!
Turns out Killer Kyle was a WCW jobber and indy jobber across the country during his career.
Gibson with an early headlock takedown when he finally gets Kyle off his feet. Gibson with some rights and then misses the charge in the corner and drives his shoulder into the corner post. Kyle goes on offense as he’s 280 pounds of mostly muscle in his mobster outfit. Some back and forth irish whip offense leads to Gibson getting the sunset flip victory rollup for a quick three count. Now that was fast! Some very basic old school storytelling in this one, but that’s the kind of quick paced opener you can expect for this show.
The Fantastics cut a promo about Bobby Fulton(one half of the Fantastic brothers) taking on Ivan Koloff. Weak promo, but that’s the early ’90s for you.
Commissioner Bob Armstrong(father of Road Dogg Jesse James and former WWE referee, Scott Armstrong. His son Brad also wrestled for WCW) has some words about how he runs SMW. He talks about running the show at fair prices for the fans, giving heavy fines for breaking the rules(touching the referee, throwing your opponent over the top rope, cheating, etc). He wants to know what the fans want and welcomes them to mail in their letters(couldn’t send tweets 22 years ago).
Bad Boy, Barry Horowitz is in the ring patting himself on the back as he waits for his opponent with the ’80s blonde hair, Prime Time Brian Lee.
Brian Lee defeats Barry Horowitz in roughly four minutes of solid back and forth action. Lee gets the pinfall after a big Razor’s edge setup into a sitting backbreaker. Good match from these guys. They really maximize the basic storytelling in just four minutes of time to keep the audience involved. Nice work.
Ron Wright is in a wheelchair cutting a promo. Wright says he’s in a chair needing a hip and knee implant from abusing his body for years, but he’s here in SMW to scout talent for the company and get them signed so he can be their manager and make money to afford his medical procedures. Wrassling empire, he calls it. Wow. No words to describe this hick.
Golden Boy, Joe Cazana is in the ring and he takes on from Morristown, TN, White Lightning, Tim Horner. They battle about four minutes and then Horner throws Cazana around and sets him up for a rollup into a bridging pinfall for three. Nice fast paced action here!
Bob Caudle interviews Jim Cornette, one of the premier managers in professional wrestling. Cornette makes fun of Greenville and says he heard pro wrestling is coming back. He talks about the big promotions ruining pro wrestling with funny costumes and steroids and making it a joke. Cornette puts over the Midnight Express, the team he managed. Cornette says he’s going to bring a tag team to SMW that will revolutionize the business just like the Midnight Express did.
Paul Miller is in the ring for our next match and he’s taking on the Masked Black Scorpion(we’ll call him Scorpion for short). On a historical note, this would be the ONLY show the Black Scorpion would ever appear on in Smoky Mountain history.
Miller defeats the Scorpion in three and a half minutes with a small package rollup. Fast match, but decent. Nice strength vs speed style match that never gets old.
Bob Caudle interviews Brian Lee. He sounds like a major redneck. Lee says he plans on winning the Heavyweight Title tournament. Dutch comes in and gives Lee some advice about mistakes he made in the match. Mantel says he would’ve wrestled the whole match differently. Lee says Mantel would’ve lost the match, and he’s not ready for Prime Time. Fun promo there to get some heat on Dutch.
Ivan Koloff is in the ring for the main event. He’s nicknamed the Russian Bear. Bobby Fulton has the Duck Dynasty theme as his entrance theme.
Ron Wright comes to ringside five minutes into the match while Koloff and Fulton brawl on the outside. Koloff smacks Fulton with chairs before rolling him back into the ring. Wright shakes Koloff’s hand and passes him something. Koloff slugs Bobby Fulton and gets the three count. Jackie Fulton comes out and attacks Koloff while he tries to tell the ref about the interference. Vladimir the nephew comes out to help Koloff and we have the pair ganging up on Jackie until Bobby makes the save. Crazy brawling here to set up what I would expect to be a tag team rivalry down the road. Good action between Fulton and Koloff with some decent wrestling before we got that crazy finish.
Ivan Koloff will be fined five hundred dollars for using the foreign object according to Bob Armstrong. Armstrong books a tag team wrestling match next week between the Russians and the Fantastics. The Fantastics cut a promo about fighting fire with fire next week. Caudle says see you next week after the promo.
Talk about an action packed show. I mean, not one match went over six minutes but we had a ton of interesting stuff going on with some solid hard hitting action mixed in. THIS is wrestling!
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